Singing the Body Electric

Drabbles what I wrote for hp100 and (I don't think) posted here. Mostly gen, all of them safe for general audiences.


Title: Housecleaning
Prompt: Hair
Characters: Argus Filch (Unrequited Filch/Snape)

Despite all the celebrating and mourning, there was still cleaning up that needed doing.

When it could be put off no longer, he unlocked the rooms that had belonged to Severus Snape. He boxed up the books and the rare keepsake, and he threw out anything Professor Snape wouldn't want anyone else seeing. He swept the floor and he stripped the bed.

There was a single black hair on the pillow. Like he'd just stepped out – like he'd slept here last night and would be back as soon as you knew it.

Argus went and poured himself a stiff drink.



Title: Patron
Prompt: Protection
Characters: Alastor Moody

He was a practical man, one who lived by his gut and his wand. Vigilance was his armour, intuition his weaponry. He slept with one eye open, more literally than most could manage it. He knew that five-sixths of what passed a man's lips was a lie, and that he was no exception.

It was twenty years since he'd last set foot in a church: not so much a lack of belief but a difference of opinion. Still, each morning, his wand and knives sheathed, his dark detectors donned, he slipped on his Saint Michael medallion. Just in case.



Title: It's Not the Fall That Kills You
Prompt: High
Characters: Kingsley Shacklebolt

Kingsley perched at the top of the electrical mast, looking down into the long, dark drop. One-thousand feet, give or take. He had to know.

He closed his eyes and jumped.

One.

The wind rushing

Two.

hold on

Three.

all alone

Four.

that proud old bastard

Five.

oh god

Six.

stop!

Seven.

He yanked his broom up hard just short of the ground, jolting to a halt. Panting, eyes stinging, he hovered there until his hands stopped shaking (seven seconds, the longest of his life) and hoped to all hell Moody had already been dead when he hit the ground.



Title: The Tie-Breaker
Prompt: Tie
Characters: Minerva McGonagall

"So we've decided on Lily Evans," she said. "As for Head Boy, Mr. Lupin's done an admirable job, but I don't think his condition allows for extra duties. I'll cast my vote for Severus Snape--the responsibility will be good for him."

Horace nodded smugly as Pomona put forth Marcus Jones and Filius--after noting that Damocles Belby wished to focus on his NEWTs--sided with her.

She looked to the headmaster to break the tie.

He smiled brightly. "I think James Potter will rise to the task."

She sighed as the quill took the minutes, knowing there was no use arguing.



Title: To Lose One Parent...
Prompt: Generation
Characters: Hermione Granger

It began with Oscar Wilde, and pity for Harry to have lost all four of his grandparents before he was even a year old, leaving him at that awful house every summer.

What were the odds?

She curiously began to take notes, factoring out the war and You-Know-Who. All four of Ron's grandparents; three of Neville's, Lavender's, and Draco Malfoy's. Both of Sirius's parents, both of Professor Lupin's, Eileen Snape.

It wasn't the loss of half an entire generation who should have lived past a century that frightened her - it was that no one else seemed to notice.



Title: Patron to the Stars
Prompt: Star
Characters: Horace Slughorn

Horace was a fat, graceless child who plastered his walls with Quidditch pennants and posters of matinée stage idols. He could not ride a broom to save his life. He couldn't sing, he couldn't dance.

Now, as a man, those posters have become photographs, signed and smiling. The idols of the day send him Christmas cards and birthday gifts, and thank him in their memoirs. He's polished a thousand gemstones out of the rough and he's hung them up in the sky for all to admire.

Being a star, that's a child's dream. It's making them that takes true genius.



Title: Order the Stars
Prompt: Star
Characters: Regulus Black

Sirius is the brightest star in the sky.

Regulus knows this long before he takes his first Astronomy lesson. His brother's smile, his charm, the way he lights up any room he sets foot in. The star called Regulus may be the dimmest of the brightest, but the boy is not.

He will never be the eldest, nor the most beloved, but his namesake is swifter than his brother's. Sometimes he thinks if he's quick enough, clever enough, he can surpass him.

If he ever learned that the star's dizzying rotation could one day tear it apart, it never took.



Title: The Art of Sorting
Prompt: Wrong House
Characters: Alastor Moody

The hat took its time with this one.

Ravenclaw: A photographic memory. He becomes a barrister, dead of a heart attack by sixty-three.

Slytherin: His mind works at right angles. He makes his first million by twenty-five and crawls into a bottle.

Gryffindor: There's none braver. He wins the cup for England, then loses five galleons and his life racing a train.

Hufflepuff: Neither patience nor restraint. He'll turn his head of house grey. He learns to trust his own stubbornness; he learns to keep getting up. Alastor Moody becomes an Auror.

Sometimes the wrong house was the right choice.